Expat and travel blog featuring stories on living overseas destinations, as well as some stuff on the expat blogosphere too.

07/25/2013

British food abroad

When you're abroad for a short time, it's good to immerse yourself in a world where everything - or nearly everything - is new. For instance if you go on holiday to France and wander round your local Monoprix, Leclerc or Intermarché, you'll no doubt see a whole new world of tasty food that you just can't find back home - lots of lovely boulangerie, patessirie and charcuterie that's fresh, local, and all a bit of a novelty. What you won't find, of course, is steak pies and HP sauce. And it's things like these that we don't miss over a short period of time that become a bit of a yearning after a while.

And according to a recent news report, it seems that it's not just UK folk who like UK produce - Germany (who according to UK Trade & Investment are our number one European export market) is proving interested in a range of niche and quirly British products from clotted cream to goat's cheese and whisky. It all goes to show how specialised retail can help to popularise certain goods - and while the cheese exports may never match, say Germany's BMW and Mercedes exports in terms of value, niche food is a growing opportunity.